


a hidden courtyard

by Sheepyblue



Category: Villette - Charlotte Brontë
Genre: kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-14 22:38:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13017618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheepyblue/pseuds/Sheepyblue
Summary: Just a little Villette thing for a prompt





	a hidden courtyard

**Author's Note:**

> I've been doing some writing prompts and this one happened to be Villette inspired :) I was trying to explore Lucy's voice but I'm not sure I quite got it right, so sorry for the low quality of this, but I thought I'd share it anyway, since there's so little content for Villette.

The hall did not lend itself to hiding and all evening, I felt perpetually thrust beneath the gaze of some foppish gentleman or vapid woman. They all eyed me with the same languor that they may have viewed a familiar street; their eyes passed over me, faintly amused, faintly unseeing, faintly knowing. I tried to settle myself into the shadows, but the hall was too bright and the company too dull to allow me to slip quite into obscurity.  


The night wore on in this fashion. It wore on late, or so it felt to me, as I sat, my eyes moving from one lilac dress to another, from one careless face to the next. I had lost sight of my fair haired companion early on in the evening, a difficult feat, for she had been dressed in a deep crimson gown, with her golden curls rolling free and recklessly over her shoulders. We should have long departed, I realised, but Ginevra had not found her way back to my side. Her usual habit was to return to me, to fling her arms giddily about my neck or to lean heavily into my side, talking all the while, incessantly, about nothing at all.  


But return she did not, and she did not appear to be in the hall at all. No glimpse of crimson and gold could I find amongst the white and lilac dresses, no spiteful laugh could I hear. I viewed each corner of the hall, but Ginevra was not there. Reluctantly, I left my place of repose, and now the company chose to avert their gaze. I became a shadow for whom they would not part and who they chose not to see.  


How pleasing it was to escape then into the subdued darkness of the corridors and to stand for a moment in the cool silence. Ginevra I supposed had taken herself off with some gentleman or the other, de Hamal not doubt, and was now flittering about and simpering with him somewhere just beyond the hall. I did not want to stumble upon them, but I could not stay a moment longer.  


I walked through the corridors and glanced into each room, but I was quite alone. Had Ginevra gone without me, I wondered. Had she gone back with the Cholmondelys? I dismissed the idea, for that was not her habit. Cruel as she was, she never liked to miss the opportunity to bore me with an account of her conquests or her grievances.  


I reached a short flight of stairs and with one last glance back down the corridor, I descended into another corridor that opened out into a courtyard. The night was chill and the moon was full in the sky, so I could see quite clearly. A figure was loitering a little distance from me and in the moonlight, their golden hair was pale and icy. No Nun was this. This figure was dressed in crimson and her glittering eyes did not meet mine. How beautiful she looked, stood so serene and quiet. I stayed a shadow, undetected amongst the rest.  


I supposed she was waiting for some gentleman and I expected at any moment to see the girlish feet of de Hamal step across the courtyard and reach for her hands with his own delicate ones. We waited for a several long minutes together, but no de Hamal arrived. The night was really far advanced now and the carriage and Madame Beck’s door would not wait forever.  


‘Ginevra,’ I called and she turned, unsurprised.  


‘Lucy, how long you’ve been! Did you not worry when I left the hall?’  
‘I hardly noticed you had gone.’  


‘Bah,’ she laughed. ‘Timon, how ponderous you are. Come out here and tell me how my hair looks under the stars.’  


I would not approach her and she would not approach me. We quite battled it out, but Ginevra did not have forbearance to make it a long stand-off. She came towards me and half-laughingly flung her arms about my neck. They were ice cold and I stepped back and batted them away.  


‘You will be ill tomorrow, Ginevra.’  


‘And what of it? I shan’t have to go to lessons.’  


‘Slothful as ever, I see. Why were you out here on your own?’  


'I was simply quite done with the company tonight. How dreary they all were, did you not think?’  


‘No more so than usual.’  


‘My dear old Tim, do you never get quite tired of being such a dragon. You know, you sat all evening in the same place.’  


‘We do not all need to flitter from one place to another, Ginevra. Some of us can sit still and be composed.’  


‘Well, some of us cannot. Come, Lucy.’ She seized me with her cold hands and pulled me out into the courtyard. I tried to detach myself from her, but to no avail. Her grip was tight and insistent as always, and she whirled me round in a waltz. We seemed to have traversed the whole courtyard before she released me, cackling to herself.  


‘Ginevra, must you always?’  


‘Of course. You enjoy a dance really, my dear Tim.’  


I affirmed I did not, but she would not hear it. She darted off ahead of me and I followed behind, the shadow of the crimson and gold.


End file.
